Q & A

Have you ever noticed how many questions young children ask? I find it amazing, especially in relation to how few questions adults seem to ask. Thinking back, I know when it was that I stopped asking questions. I was in third grade and my teacher told me there was 'no such thing as a stupid question.' Up until she said that I had no idea that it was even a possibility, but when she opened pandora's box, I realized two things. Adults aren't always right and yes, there are in fact stupid questions.

Recently I spent an afternoon with my nephews, who were very curious to a wide variety of subjects from 'Who will win the Super Bowl?' to 'Is Darth Vader really a bad guy?' Having survived their barrage of questions intact, even admirably, I am now prepared to answer the questions that have really bothered me since the 3rd grade.

To be or not to be?

This is a very subjective question, sort of like ‘Hot or Not?’ Personally, having experience suffering the slings and arrows of a lack of fortune due to some seriously bad jobs, I wouldn’t altogether rule out ‘Not to be.’ Sure perchance you may have a bad dream, but that’s just as likely if you eat bad shellfish or watch ‘Saw’ right before you go to bed. Now there’s no question that it is nobler ‘To Be,’ but nobility is highly overrated and as we can see through British royalty, often based on inbreeding. As I am a fan of neither, I will say ‘Not To Be’ and move on.

If the sky is the limit, then what is space, over the limit?

This one is tricky because it deals with science, which is not my specialty. It’s really not my fault. My 8th grade earth science teacher could never remember my name so he took to calling me Rainbow because he knew it started with an R. I damned that R. The kid who sat next to me was named Kevin and he got to be called Konga, which was a hell of lot less embarrassing, and a hell of lot more masculine. So you can see why my grades went downhill. As for the question, I feel there is probably one simple answer. The sky + 1. This always worked with that pesky infinity issue when arguing with my sister. Of course, that always opens up the door to the sky + 2, the sky + 3, etc. Should the debate over the sky become a pissing contest with someone I suggest avoiding the sky + infinity and jumping straight to the sky + the sky. For some reason, infinity + infinity always won for my sister despite my claims for infinity + infinity +1.

Does practice make perfect?

This is another one that has boggled my mind, mostly because I have been told repeatedly over time that nobody’s perfect, for instance when I played tennis and couldn’t slow down my second serve and during sex when I couldn’t slow down my first. In each case, practice did actually resolve the problem at hand, but in neither has it removed doubt from the equation, as I still do double fault at least once a match and still have a tendency to think about Kate Winslet’s nude Titantic scene at the wrong moment. So with that in mind, I don’t think that practice makes perfect and would tend to agree that nobody’s perfect. I do however marvel at Scarlett Johansson’s beauty and talent though and think that she may in fact be perfect by the time she’s 25, therefore negating this whole answer. Stay tuned.

What does it mean to be caught between a rock and a hard place?

Seems to me that most rocks I’ve ever encountered were pretty damn hard, so are we to believe that we are caught between a hard and a harder place, or is this rock we speak of made of some kind of sponge? Now if we’re using one of those foam rocks that work as set pieces in Superman movies, then I really don’t think being caught between the 2 is that big a deal. Just toss aside the spongy one. Now if we’re talking about being caught between a rock and another rock that gets dicier. If one rock were smaller than the other, first try lifting the smaller one because depending upon the density of the molecules within the stone, the smaller one would tend to be the lighter one. If they are approximately the same size and weight, and you find yourself truly stuck, don’t panic, simply call 911 on your mobile phone if it is handy or call out for help using that phrase, “Help me please, I am caught between a rock and rock.” Do not call out, “Help me please, I am caught between a rock and a hard place” because many may misinterpret your connotation and see your dilemma as purely psychological, when in fact you are physically endangered.

Is ignorance bliss? I don’t know. And that doesn’t make me any happier, so you figure it out.

How many roads must a man walk down to know he is a man?

For me it was 206. I remember that day very well, I was about 15 and I came to the end of Maidstone Lane in Amagansett, NY on my way to the beach. Just at the intersection of Maidstone and Marine I thought to myself, wow, I feel different. I feel as if I could provide for a family, drink whisky straight, or go to war. Then I bought a rocket pop from the ice cream man and went boogie boarding. Now this is going to be different for everyone, for instance I didn’t walk that much as a kid because my mom didn’t trust me or NJ drivers or something. Also, if you grew up on a farm and walked to town you’d be hitting up some really long roads, which is quite unfair. I mean. are NYC kids men earlier simply because city blocks are shorter than country blocks? I think not. Still, the answer is that it’s different for every man. For reference though, if you haven’t become a man by the time you’ve walked 1000 roads, then you might want to see a doctor.

Is a picture worth a thousand words?

Also subjective because I don’t really get art so much. I enjoy it, but if you take me to a Jackson Pollack retrospective, I see lines and paint splatters, not the meaning of war against a lavender mist. And I’m a writer, so imagine how few words an accountant or a mute might have? I don’t doubt that a picture is worth a thousand words to some people, but keep in mind that 1 US dollar equals 1,532 Iraqi Dinars at the moment so everything is relative.

And finally:

Is money the root of all evil?

Very difficult to say. For instance, if it were, then I would like to think that churches wouldn’t ask for donations. I mean that’s just a conflict of interests right there. Still, ‘all evil’ is a really large concept; so to blame everything that goes wrong in the world on money seems a bit short sighted. Granted we go to wars over money, people get raped and murdered over money, and Donald Trump somehow seems to remain in the public eye because of money. For all of that, I’ll give you that money is problematic, but the ‘root of all evil’ I cannot accept so long as it’s the people doing the bad things. So until a dollar bill is charged with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, I’ll go about blaming OJ and throwing some blame for evil on my ex-girlfriends.

Now you’d think being able to answer all these, I could sit here and resolve some of the serious problems our society faces, from poverty to war and plague. Of course that will have to wait because my wife just asked me to take the garbage out and we all know what my answer has to be.